More dazzling melancholia from Spain’s Pedro Almódovar in this concentric tale of creative block and the ethics of fiction.
The maestro of melodrama, Pedro Almódovar, is currently making some of the finest films of his storied career – his run from 2015’s Julieta onwards has seen the Spanish icon apply a strict “bangers only” policy to his creative output, and his scintillating new one, Bitter Christmas, abides by that self-set edict. Like all auto-fiction worth its salt, the film is a supremely self-lacerating study of the people we hurt (and, more specifically, the complex ways in which we hurt them) when parlaying their personal traumas into juicy fiction.
Rather than move towards a conventional climax, this is a sombre drama on the ethics of storytelling which slowly peels back its dense layers until, eventually, Almódovar decides to give himself an excoriating (and breathtaking!) dressing down. It operates as something of a partner piece to 2018‘s Pain and Glory, again directly addressing the idea that if you’re not seriously pissing off at least a few people, then the art you’re making is probably not massively worthwhile.
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Before we address the story, it’s worth saying that Pedro Almódovar is an artist down to the very essence of his being, and he has attained a zen-like state of formal poise and natural cinematic articulation. His technique has been refined to the point of invisibility, where simply being in the presence of the images and sounds he delivers offers a sense of swaddling comfort and reassurance. He still has a few clever structural tricks up his sleeve, but for the most part Bitter Christmas is merely a case of a formidable film director just being formidable. Again.
And so to the story of Bárbara Lennie’s Elsa, a one-time cult filmmaker whose indie flop landed her in corporate advertising jail, a sideline for which she’s not too dismissive. This is mainly because it allowed her to hook up with avuncular beefcake Raúl (Leonardo Sbarglia), a firefighter by day, but who also has his own little side-hustle as a male stripper on the hen party circuit. Elsa casts Raúl in a TV ad for underwear and the pair strike up a relationship. While she immerses herself in the world of Madrid’s media elite, he happily falls into the role of trusty lapdog who is there for her come rain or shine.
The story kicks off with Elsa heading to the emergency room while in the midst of a splitting migraine – an affliction that has come on suddenly and she has no real idea why. The film isn’t particularly interested in medical ramifications of Elsa’s migraines, though they do kick-start a period of existential reflection where the acknowledgement of physical fallibility makes the institutionalised filmmaker think that she should go back to making art for herself once more, even if it didn’t go particularly well the first time.
It’s probably worth saying no more about the story, though there is a clever framing device which supplies innumerable insights into the subtle tactics used by screenwriters when it comes to hiding their own concerns inside their work. As Elsa decides to spend more time with her friends – whose lives are all in various states of ruin – we’re forced to question how sincere she’s being as a robust shoulder to cry on, as there’s the chance she may just be out there farming for spicy material to purloin for her next script.
With its deeply moving musical interludes, comic patter, outrageously chic production design, Bitter Christmas is very much par for the course when it comes to late period Almódovar. And what a course!
